The Red Hen restaurant that asked press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave last week, setting off an unbelievable amount of news headlines, is located in Lexington, Virginia. While the location of this place is easily Googleable, especially thanks to both Sanders and Donald Trump calling out the business in tweets from their official accounts (and a number of protestors did in fact find it, bringing signs that touted “Trump Is Love” and even throwing poop at it), many outraged by Sanders’ lack of meal service have been spreading their rage to the wrong Red Hen restaurants.
ABC News 13 cites Red Hens in Connecticut and New Jersey, unrelated to the Virginia establishment (heads-up, people: It’s not a chain) that have received negative backlash, with the latter saying “they have been swamped with over 600 negative calls.” New England Cable News reports on a Vermont bakery, 700 miles from the Lexington restaurant, that also received a number of complaints. Randy George, the optimistic owner of the Red Hen Bakery Co. in Middlesex stated that “After word got out about the hate mail, George said he’s gotten much more positive support from his loyal customers than the volume of scorn he received from total strangers.”
Protestors even targeted the Red Hen chicken farm in Missoula, Montana, literally on the opposite side of the country:
At least going after the Red Hen restaurant in D.C. makes more sense from a geographical standpoint, even if it’s still not the right restaurant. Owner Michael Freidman reports to WJLA/CNN that hundreds of negative online Yelp reviews had to be removed, saying, “It started just with negative comments and then just worked into death threats and vandalizing the restaurant,” which was even egged. Staff have subsequently added a sign in front announcing “#NOT THAT RED HEN,” but that probably won’t help withstand the online and phone assaults until this all hopefully blows over.
In conclusion, people are dumb.